FlashQ: The little cube for flash photography

An IndieGoGo project called FlashQ seeks to make wireless flash triggers small in size and stylish to look at. The FlashQ is a 2.4Ghz wireless trigger and receiver system that mounts to a camera’s hotshoe and a flash’s hotshoe adapter. The compact device is aimed at owners of mirrorless cameras and other small camera bodies.

The FlashQ has two buttons and a single tricolor LED to control all of its functionality, and uses automatic channel selection to quickly pair up to eight receivers at a time, allowing for multiple flash solutions. There’s even a output connector that allows the device to trigger a flash or even a strobe pack over PC connector.

Thanks to the use of radio spectrum instead of infrared (as is the standard on many manufacturer specific wireless flash systems) the devices don't require line-of-sight to trigger properly. There are limits though - the FlashQ doesn't support TTL functionality and sync speed is limited to 1/250 sec.

For a $39 pledge backers will receive one transmitter and one receiver in a choice of colors, $55 gets one transmitter and two receivers and a $125 option is available whereby the company will inscribe the device with the customer’s signature.

Old comment, but I'll reply anyway. This IS wireless. Just without TTL. It's less expensive than most wireless triggers and it's small, so I think it can be useful as either a small device to carry around for those who don't care for TTL or a backup to leave in the camera bag in case you forget your main wireless trigger.

My only complaint about these triggers is that the cold "foot" of the receiver is very loose and will not stay put in a typical flash stand bracket that comes with your flash. You pretty much have to use the 3/8 thread to mount it on something.

The transmitter is not a problems because my camera hot shoe has little spring arms that help engage the foot and the transmitter foot also has a spring loaded "ground" that engages the side of the hotshoe.

Too bad they don't make these USB rechargeable. There are so many players in this market that there is surely room for one more. I don't know how they'll compete against the Chinese stuff that's out there already though.

My experience with inexpensively made consumer products from China is that the soldered internal rechargeable batteries are unreliable. They crap out within months and turns the device into a pretty paperweight. A pity when the rest of the product is well designed and constructed. Being able to insert fresh batteries from a known source is so much better.

When you can get more functionality from kits already available on the market for less money and that use decent sized, readily available batteries (AAA) it says that people care about the looks of the thing more than the practicality.

You can get a wireless flash trigger on Amazon (2 triggers and 1 transmitter) for $20. These work great on my Canon. However, the FlashQ pics suggest they work with the GF1, which these $20 units on Amazon have trouble with firing consistantly. If you only shoot with one, it's not much of a problem, but if you have multiple flash units and you need both firing, it's a pain. Maybe it's not a bad deal.

errr.. cool concept, but, no to kickstarter. most of them fail and for the successful ones, the originators sell off to the highest bidder, keeping all the profits (e.g. Oculus) and leaving the backers with half-@$$ dev products.

Speaking from personal experience or do you have some data to back up that claim? Personally, I've participated in half a dozen successful Kickstarts, but I go for more reasonable projects and not stuff that's more far out like Oculus. My Meenova microUSB OTG reader, the Clearshot card sized phone stand, and even Tim Schaffer's new game all seemed to have far better prospects from the start.

I was actually skeptic of Pebble, one of their bigger success stories, because of the complexity of project. Any time you're investing in software PLUS hardware development you're putting a lot of faith on campaign. I actually didn't jump on the Pebble, almost bought one later tho. Bug A Salt (salt gun for insects) and MrSpeakers Alpha Dogs were other successful campaigns I kept my eye on.

The thing that a lot of those have in common is that they were either for very simple very mechanical products (Bug A Salt, Clearshot, Meenova, even the Alpha Dogs), or they had a relatively small team behind them with a proven track record (Tim Schaefer). MrSpeakers already had a successful business modifying planar magnetic headphones by hand, the campaign was simply to get funds for 3D printing more precise and better engineered cups.

I'd say there's a lot of highly successful campaigns that resulted in a clever and original product. I don't have any numbers on the overall success rate, I think people definitely get sucked in by the hype surrounding more ambitious campaigns tho. Things like Pebble and Oculus are a 50/50 shot at best IMO. Pebble itself might not even survive the Android Wear onslaught.

Oh and on topic, this seems like a reasonable campaign tho I'd have to take a closer look. The other thing people don't pay attention to is how much engineering and prototyping has been done before the campaign. A lot of campaigns are started on dreams and ideas, I wouldn't bother with that. If the people behind the product already have working prototypes or designs and just need help with manufacturing, that's a different story.

Most of the ones I've invested in fall in the latter category (ClearShot, Pressy, etc). There were Oculus prototypes out there but c'mon, it was obvious that thing had a long way to go.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention Pressy on the first post, another very mechanical doodad. Haven't received it yet but they're on track for shipping this month, one more relatively simple product that just needed manufacturing funds.

What did she actually say?Her English is so hard to understand that it nearly made me stop looking at the video.

Although the idea by itself is nice.Its never a good idea to hold a camera in one hand while holding a flash in the other. You'll loose a lot of stability even though the flash freezes your movement.

Also not of much use to those photographers that don't understand how to operate a flash in manual mode. Many will get horrible results by using these simple wireless hotshoes as their flash will overpower the subject they want to photograph.

For those that know how to use this little cube its a nicely designed simple wireless flash trigger.

Still I would like to have seen a quarter inch screwhole in the receiver so I could attach the flash to a studio lightpole, or monopod.

Edit: I see now that an 1/4 inch screwhole adapter is available, but is it seperate, or do you get it standard with the kit?

@Zeischen,Who do you think that buy most of these little point and shoot camera's? How many of those people do you think are skilled enough to understand that this device is limited to manual flash only?

I think you are overestimating the skills of the people that buy these point en shoot camera's.

I hope for you that I am wrong, but only time will learn if they target the right audience. In the end its nothing more then a simple radio trigger.

This little trigger is only easy to use for those people that know what they are doing.

You can actually use this on every camera but not on "little point and shoot cameras" as they don't have a hotshoe. Have a little more faith in all those unskilled photographers out there, they could maybe figure it out after some shots...

I think is quite cool! But i am quite happy with inexpensive/Yongnuo triggers without TTL. The usual scenarios where i shot with several flashes don't require TTL. Actually i don't use TTL at all because of too many underexposures.

The Yongnuo with TTL also allows you to change all flash settings from the camera ... which is more important than the TTL function. Simple triggers require you to go to each flash and fiddle around with them.